A few days ago, I learned that a social worker is planning to meet with my 13-year-old daughter at school. The ostensible reason for this meeting is legitimate -- my daughter's been cutting class, for reasons she's unwilling to explain clearly. She needs counseling, yes. But added on to the message from the school counselor about this public social worker's plans was a mention of concern about my daughter's typical attire. Not that it is inappropriate, exactly, but that it is, in some unexplained way, inadequate.
It's not slut-shaming I have to deal with, it's personal-choice-shaming. Poverty-shaming, too.
Over the years I've lived at poverty-level among some of the most privileged upper-middle-class people in the nation, as a poor relation sponging off my in-laws' savings, I have had to confront a seemingly endless stream of unspoken assumptions, prohibitions, and bigotries. With a smile on my face. Because in Capitalist America, the Soulless Minions of Orthodoxy come bearing Thanksgiving turkeys and Christmas cheer.
God bless us, every one.
Bitterness is ugly, and I don't especially like myself for feeling this way. But I am so very sick of people giving my children Barbie dolls and insipid, saccharine books. 'Beggars can't be choosers' is the line that sinks like lead in my stomach. They never come out and say it directly, of course. They know better than to give anyone a chance to point out the morally reprehensible implication that the poor have no right to live life as they like. That freedom isn't free -- it's exclusively for the rich.
Still, hey, Barbie dolls can go to Goodwill, books to the library donations bin. I don't mind passing stuff around. It is when government officials interfere in my family's life that I get seriously pissed.
My daughter is a brilliant person with a profound disinterest in the trivialities of teen fashion and drama. I've taught her to think critically, to view the mass media with skepticism, to resist the temptations of the Market Demon. She wears bland clothes that she finds comfortable. Idiots might call her a 'hipster' but she doesn't make her choices based on trying to fit in with any kind of counterculture. She is eccentric, creative, and compassionate. Yes, she's going through a rocky time in her life -- most 13-year-olds are. In her case it's exacerbated by having moved into a more affluent neighborhood just a year ago. None of us are entirely comfortable here yet.
Ugh. One day I'll figure out what to do.
It's not slut-shaming I have to deal with, it's personal-choice-shaming. Poverty-shaming, too.
Over the years I've lived at poverty-level among some of the most privileged upper-middle-class people in the nation, as a poor relation sponging off my in-laws' savings, I have had to confront a seemingly endless stream of unspoken assumptions, prohibitions, and bigotries. With a smile on my face. Because in Capitalist America, the Soulless Minions of Orthodoxy come bearing Thanksgiving turkeys and Christmas cheer.
God bless us, every one.
Bitterness is ugly, and I don't especially like myself for feeling this way. But I am so very sick of people giving my children Barbie dolls and insipid, saccharine books. 'Beggars can't be choosers' is the line that sinks like lead in my stomach. They never come out and say it directly, of course. They know better than to give anyone a chance to point out the morally reprehensible implication that the poor have no right to live life as they like. That freedom isn't free -- it's exclusively for the rich.
Still, hey, Barbie dolls can go to Goodwill, books to the library donations bin. I don't mind passing stuff around. It is when government officials interfere in my family's life that I get seriously pissed.
My daughter is a brilliant person with a profound disinterest in the trivialities of teen fashion and drama. I've taught her to think critically, to view the mass media with skepticism, to resist the temptations of the Market Demon. She wears bland clothes that she finds comfortable. Idiots might call her a 'hipster' but she doesn't make her choices based on trying to fit in with any kind of counterculture. She is eccentric, creative, and compassionate. Yes, she's going through a rocky time in her life -- most 13-year-olds are. In her case it's exacerbated by having moved into a more affluent neighborhood just a year ago. None of us are entirely comfortable here yet.
Ugh. One day I'll figure out what to do.
